b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ OUR MISSION YOUR FUTURE: A Real Look At Taco Bell. in 3 parts by the Prime Anarchist "Most energizing place to work." "Up to $7 per hour." "Need Motivated people." Taco Bell's hiring. They're always hiring, aren't they? Will they ever not? Not on this growth model, pal. I was made a Taco Bell manager today. Well sort of. Just for the day. I don't work for them, likely never will. Sorry, I can't work for a man who drapes taped job app forms from the ceiling in hopes to "lure" another fish. For me that goes hand in hand with having an employee with his resume online 24/7 telling the whole world he's "still looking." I mean a market where someone offering 5/hr tries to require a resume as opposed to a job app? Do these people think an online resume will get them even 30 cents more per hour??? Well I was a manager for a day because they'd fouled up my order in a local store. I got two free meals as an apology. And the only way to ring it up so I get me a free meal in "proper" fashion was to call me a manager and ring it in under the manager key. Otherwise the theft involved in giving me a free meal would have to be called, well, theft. Let's take a look at all that is Taco Bell. I mean a real in-depth look. Don't just scratch the surface. Dig some. What do we find? Most of them are shaped like what? Like a southwestern mission. And what kind of images does that bring up? 40% of this planet would have to say genocide, repression, inquisition - they would cite half a millenium of general bad mood. Another 40% would call it some kind of outreach of something trustworthy, noble, external, distant, not requiring any further thought. That leaves 20? Almost 20% (18.7 to be exact) would tell you right away they just don't care. Not their world, not their life. Kind of like an earthquake that kills 50 million people on some other planet or something. The other 1.3% of the world's population has a job shooting gooey green guacamole-substance (tm) out of a grouting gun at a Taco Bell near you! b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ "Fight the power, IWW," says a Taco Bell manager to a young black counter person wearing dreadlocks. "In fact I think when we print up new name-tags that's what we'll make yours say - 'IWW.'" It's nice to see the manager has plenty of time to think up nicknames, after all the other Responsibilities she has to pay out. Team Chief, I believe they call her. It was written on a Taco Bell bulletin board one other time I was able to see from the customer side of the counter. They choose to differ in name I guess, from the McDonalds managers who are called Crew Chief. Team Chief is in charge of telling everyone what to do; and passing out nicknames. If she's caught doing anything else, she probably gets written up for not following policy. IWW (never did get her name) is in charge of squirting guacamole from a device that looks like a short fat caulking gun. While pushing avocado mush onto burritos that pass her by, she seems adept at double-tasking - discussing opression, economic slavery and "the man." Taco Bell is owned by PepsiCo who has a reputation for treating American employees much better than "those other companies" do. But then, so does Microsoft. As do Coors, Gannett and come to think of it - so did Henry Ford and Ross Perot. What do all these companies have in common? Draw the word UNION inside a circle and put a big diagonal red line through it. Can that manager have meant the Wobblies when she called the avocado gunner IWW? That's the only reference I can think of for IWW - International Workers of the World. No one seems to know out there how the nickname "Wobbly" came about. Do they still even exist? I knew Workers World still puts out a newspaper somewhere near Chicago, but they're a whole different "animal." As are Catholic Worker, putting out their paper in New York City. I know there are Catholic Worker houses all over the United States and much of the rest of the world, each doing their own version of Dorothy Day's published vision. But besides the newspapers and the houses, is there still some semblence of a workers movement out there? The only two Wobblies I've ever met in person were in their 50's, white, college educated and well dressed. The only things that might stand out about them bringing the word "radical" to mind would be a pipe wrench (monkey?) lapel-pin and dread-locked hair. That was New Mexico somewhere and many years ago. Was it 1992? 1988? Well, just a tiny bit of research shows that IWW is very active in Seattle, WA; Ypsilanti, MI; and Philadelphia, PA. In fact, when asked why Borders Books fired Miriam Fried, June 15, 1996; the Philadelphia model employee (by Borders' own standards) sticks to, "For wearing an IWW button to work," as her soundbite. The wider story includes that, and also serving on union committees, signing flyers, and petitions and raising embarrassing questions about company policies. Is it she who moved to my local Taco Bell to get picked on by Team Chief? Or does she perhaps have a sister? Body double - or coincidence? "IWW Songs" was published 1991. "Something In Common: An IWW Bibliography?" 1986. And "Solidarity Forever: An Oral History Of The IWW" was 1985. What could all this have to do with giving a new name-tag name to a young black woman who works hard caulking burritos with guacamole? Let's see what Ashley Montagu had to say about name calling in his timeless text, "Anatomy of Swearing." The most cultivated form of swearing is invective, which may be defined as polite swearing. The shafts loosed in this form of verbal assault are often most skillfully wrought. Though the target may be discomfited, the wounds they inflict are seldom serious and upon healing frequently leave the victim all the better for having suffered them. The social function of ridicule, persiflage, and invective has not gone altogether unrecognized in its effect upon persons and upon institutions. b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ OUR MISSION : YOUR FUTURE Gone Fission : Still Lookin b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ OUR MISSION YOUR FUTURE: A Real Look At Taco Bell. in 3 parts by the Prime Anarchist "Most energizing place to work." "Up to $7 per hour." "Need Motivated people." Taco Bell's hiring. They're always hiring, aren't they? Will they ever not? Not on this growth model, pal. Let's take a look at all that is Taco Bell. I mean a real in-depth look. Don't just scratch the surface. Dig some. What do we find? Most of them are shaped like what? Like a southwestern mission. 1.3% of the world's population has a job shooting gooey green guacamole-substance (tm) out of a grouting gun at a Taco Bell near you! b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ (CON'T FROM LAST ISSUE) Even nations may in this manner be taught their most enduring lessons, and precisely at those times when they are preening themselves on those great qualities before which goes the fall. Some day, when man has risen from the status of Homo sap to that of Homo sapiens, the worst kinds of individual conflicts and wars between nations will be fought not with the destructive power of armaments but with the constructive power of words, by the force of argument rather than by the argument of force. To a certain extent this has already been recognized by many societies. In every society those men are most admired who turn the tables upon their adversaries by the art and virtuosity of their words rather than by the resort to violence. Don't You Push Me Down by Woodie Guthrie c 1954. Folkways music publishers. ny ny Don't you push me, push me, push me Don't you push me down (repeat) C - - F / G7 - - C :// You can play with me, you can hold my hand We can skip together down to the pretzel man You can wear my mommy's shoe, wear my daddy's hat You can even laugh at me, but don't you push me down - No! C F C F / G7 - - C :// You can play with me, we can build a house You can take my ball & bounce it up & down You can take my skates & ride them all around You can even get mad at me, but don't... You can play with me, we can play all day And you can use my dishes if you'll put them away You can feed me apples & oranges & plums And you can even wash my face, but don't you... 2 B Continued Next issue. Know you? I hardly even tissue. b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ OUR MISSION YOUR FUTURE: A Real Look At Taco Bell. in 3 parts by the Prime Anarchist (this being 3) "Most energizing place to work." "Up to $7 per hour." "Need Motivated people." Taco Bell's hiring. They're always hiring, aren't they? Will they ever not? Not on this growth model, pal. Let's take a look at all that is Taco Bell. I mean a real in-depth look. Don't just scratch the surface. Dig some. What do we find? Most of them are shaped like what? (...if you need the answer to that, see: http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/ATI/ati206.txt) b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ These days it's easy to tell a person where their place is. In fact they're liable to already assign it to themselves. "Being the head peon has its priveliges," said a CVS Drug Stores manager to two employees this morning in front of five customers including myself. She was justifying sitting around answering questions while everyone else restocks shelves and keeps generally busy in front of the pharmacists. An assistant manager, she's definitely not a "grunt," anymore, but at a dollar or two extra per hour and few benefits if any, she's surely not chief executive either. You don't have to call her head peon, or anything else - she summed herself up just fine. While in the Signal Corps of the United States Army, I was a PFC which stands for Private, First Class. I supervised 7 people but was still a private, no matter how first class I seemed. Head Peon? I'm told a GI would have assaulted a civilian for calling him Head Peon, or Pickle Head, or any other assortment of derogatory terms. Nowadays, military personel are just as happy as civilians calling themselves all kinds of names that put them in their own low place. In Wisconsin, a 19-year old Asian Taco Bell counter clerk once waited on some skater kids ahead of them. She scowled at them when she thought none of us were looking, especially them. When it was time to make change, she had this glazed look to her looking some- where between the eyes of the person who paid and my eyes. "Thank you, and have a nice day," she said sounding like that little girl who's half robot in that sit-calm that's gone to re-rans now. Or Dr. Spock in the early years, before all the Cocaine and Crystal Meth. "Hi," she turned to me as soon as she was "finally" done with them, "how 'ya DOIN'??" as if she really, really really wanted to know. I told her 'good' and just waited for her next work of art. "What can I DO for you?" "Tell me why you hate skater kids, maybe," I said to her. I'm not lying. She told me she doesn't hate them, it's just that... and that... and you know... they... [insert any words you've ever heard used on any ethnic group, class or type of person.] Basically, she told me how much she hates skater kids. White punks she called them. She was chock full of "they'll nevers," "they always'" "wonts" and "do-it-all-the-times." What is it about the modern work-site that seems to call for more biting name-calling than home, leisure or anywhere else in today's society? Ask any member of a recently established immigrant group what he or she dislikes about those newer immigrants and you'll hear about "willing to work so hard for such little pay, threatening real jobs," in among all the other junk. Well, if that's a sin, aren't we ALL guilty? "You people make more money than I do, that's for sure," a boss of mine once told me. I don't even remember what job I'm describing actually. It could have been one of a handful of bosses over the years. Small business owners are the worst. Maybe I should have that stamped on MY name-tag. "You people make more money than I do." If we're all busy each of us swearing the other into place, guess who needn't pay out more than occasional oppression to keep us all in line? "You the man, Buster." You the man. Usually I get poked in the ribs or pinched behind my wallet when someone insists on telling me "[I'm] the man." Yours, Marco Employee Frucht. b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r.b.o.r.d.e.r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^